Why am I not losing weight?

RuxleyBlueChip1993
RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone,

I'm 20 years old, 5"9.5' and the last time I weighed in I was 163lbs. I've been trying to eat healthily for about 6 weeks now, have been going to the gym for the past month, and for the past three weeks I have been to the gym 5 times per week, either running (distances between 5k-7k) or doing a 50 minute zumba class. I also don't have a car and live in the city centre, so I walk everywhere, which usually racks up to at least 45 mins- 1 hour per day, and sometimes much more.

I have been religiously following my diet. I've not had a drop of alcohol in 3 weeks, I cook all of my meals from scratch, and I only very occasionally eat processed packaged foods (usually in the form of soups or breakfast cereals, but even then it's all bran!)

I have had a couple of days in the past month where I've cheated (a recent road trip meant a lot of bread and a burger king, eek! And my italian friends did a homemade pizza night....) but generally I am very very dedicated.

The problem is, I'm not losing weight.

In fact, every time I've weighed myself since my first week weigh in (163.2lbs) the scale has shown an increase.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong and am really discouraged. If you have any advice please let me know!

Overall I am aiming to lose around 25lbs, to get down to around the 140 mark.

Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • Rawfoodsho
    Rawfoodsho Posts: 181
    People will probably just tell you that you go to the gym too much and you need a rest day in between ....Even though you would logically think more working out would mean more weight loss. If you are eating a deficit and working out daily there is no reason you shouldn't be losing weight. You are either not measuring your food right (if at all) or you have a health condition. I was the typical 5'9 125 pound girl my whole life, then at about 24 I gained 60 pounds in 1 year (no babies involved) finally my lady doctor suggested that I go to a specialist. I went to an ear, nose and throat specialist and found out I have a nodule on my thyroid that killed my metabolism. You never know what is wrong with you
  • SherryTeach
    SherryTeach Posts: 2,836 Member
    Open your diary if you want advice. You can talk round and round about what you are doing, but looking at the data can inform decisions.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,027 Member
    There's usually only a few legit reasons:

    You're overestimating how many calories that intaking or burning
    You're not as consistent as you think
    Your calorie deficit is too high (you may be shooting for 2lbs a week)
    You have a hormonal issue

    Address those honestly first.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • servilia
    servilia Posts: 3,452 Member
    If you open your diary we might be able to help.
  • RuxleyBlueChip1993
    RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
    As far as I'm aware I don't have a hormonal issue.

    It might be that I'm not eating enough, but I feel like I am and I eat when I'm hungry. I log pretty much everything unless I'm away for some reason, and I use the MFP calorie burn calculators to work out my calorie burn, so it could be that they're just not accurate for me. It's just atm I don't really have the money for a heart rate monitor (student budgets!) :)

    I did splash out on a food scale today so will have to see if I've been underestimating portions.

    I will open up my diary now and see if anybody has any other input.

    Thanks for the advice so far!
  • laserturkey
    laserturkey Posts: 1,680 Member
    Having looked at your diary, it appears you are not fueling your body nearly enough for your workouts. However, since you haven't been using a food scale, all your numbers could be way off. I suggest using the food scale consistently AND making sure your calorie burns from exercise aren't horribly inflated, then eating back at least some of the calories burned. MFP tends significantly to overestimate calorie burns from a lot of exercises. If you can afford an HRM it will enable you to get better estimates.
  • RuxleyBlueChip1993
    RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
    Thanks for the advice. I'll get on with the food scale from today :)
    HRM might have to be a Christmas request! Haha
  • marymoog
    marymoog Posts: 9 Member
    Hello! After looking at your food diary, my best guess is that your exercise calories burned are inflated. When logging fitness activities on here, I typically enter that I did the exercise for a shorter duration (i.e. 45 minutes rather than the hour I actually worked out) in order to get a more accurate calorie burn.

    Also, make sure you are truly logging everything you are eating. It is easy to forget about small bites and tastes you may have taken throughout the day.
  • RuxleyBlueChip1993
    RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
    Thanks for the advice marymoog, I might start logging things for a lower duration of time as well :)

    I've generally been pretty good about my logging but you could be right and maybe I am eating little things and forgetting to note them in my phone, like I do with the majority of my snacks.
  • Unknown
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  • RuxleyBlueChip1993
    RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
    Thanks Jerry. I'll keep going and hopefully it'll pay off in the end!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Because you're eating to a maintenance level of calories. It doesn't matter that you cook from scratch or workout like a fool...if you're not consistently in a calorie deficit you won't lose weight. If you're counting calories then you are underestimating your intake. Baring user error you should go see a doctor and get your blood work done.
  • RuxleyBlueChip1993
    RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
    @cwolfman13, As far as I'm aware I am eating a deficit everyday. Even if my calorie intake/output were significantly off I would still expect to be seeing a little bit of weight loss, which is why I'm confused.

    As for saying I'm 'exercising like a fool', I don't really think that is a particularly constructive comment. If you could explain how I am exercising like a fool that might be a bit more useful.

    But thank you anyway for taking the time to write back :)
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,027 Member
    @cwolfman13, As far as I'm aware I am eating a deficit everyday. Even if my calorie intake/output were significantly off I would still expect to be seeing a little bit of weight loss, which is why I'm confused.

    As for saying I'm 'exercising like a fool', I don't really think that is a particularly constructive comment. If you could explain how I am exercising like a fool that might be a bit more useful.

    But thank you anyway for taking the time to write back :)
    He meant that you're exercising a lot and more than likely not intaking enough calories to cover it. He's not saying you have foolish works out. It's a slang term.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • RuxleyBlueChip1993
    RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
    @ninerbuff Thanks for clearing that up. With all this advice hopefully next week's weigh in will be a different story. :)

    Thanks to all for your help! :) I'm going to put my diary back to private again now and keep going with my journey!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    @cwolfman13, As far as I'm aware I am eating a deficit everyday. Even if my calorie intake/output were significantly off I would still expect to be seeing a little bit of weight loss, which is why I'm confused.

    As for saying I'm 'exercising like a fool', I don't really think that is a particularly constructive comment. If you could explain how I am exercising like a fool that might be a bit more useful.

    But thank you anyway for taking the time to write back :)

    Exercising like a fool is just slang...like, "I lift like a fool"...going above and beyond the day to day hum drum...I wasn't indicating that you were doing anything wrong.

    Also, it's very easy to underestimate intake and to overestimate burn. Studies indicate that if you're just eyeballing portions and what not you are likely underestimating intake by as much as 30%. Calorie counting requires precision and consistency to work. This means you should pretty much be weighing out anything that has a serving size by weight and measuring out all liquids. Also...and this might seem kinda stupid but do you account for cooking oils. A lot of people neglect to account for cooking oils and they are extremely calorie dense.

    Have you had blood work done? It could be a medical issue or something as simple as a Vitamin D deficiency or something.
  • RuxleyBlueChip1993
    RuxleyBlueChip1993 Posts: 9 Member
    Ok, thanks. I'd never heard that saying before!

    Yes, I do account for cooking oils. I tend to use extra-virgin olive oil and I measure it out using a teaspoon because I know I tend to overestimate when it comes to free-pouring oil! I don't really use oil that much though, just 1-1.5tsps to fry veg etc.

    No, I've never had my bloods done. I'm currently studying in Spain, so it's a bit more difficult to arrange things here than back home in the UK. If I'm still having trouble with it it sounds like it might be worth getting them done when I'm back at Christmas!

    Weighing food I hope I'll see an improvement. I try to use spoons with approximate weight charts but obviously that isn't going to be as accurate as weighing. Hopefully the food scales will help with the person ones! ;)

    Thanks again for the advice! :)
  • jivegirl100
    jivegirl100 Posts: 4 Member
    If you're doing lots of gym workouts I'd suggest you'll be building new muscles. Muscle weighs more than fat (I think) so it's not unusual for the new muscle weight to outweigh (excuse the pun) the fat lost. Just an idea.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    If you're doing lots of gym workouts I'd suggest you'll be building new muscles. Muscle weighs more than fat (I think) so it's not unusual for the new muscle weight to outweigh (excuse the pun) the fat lost. Just an idea.

    That's not likely at this juncture. It takes a lot more time to build muscle.. Muscle doesn't really weight more than fat, it just more dense than fat and takes up less space. :smile:
  • cafeaulait7
    cafeaulait7 Posts: 2,459 Member
    The exercise is new, and you only have 25lbs to lose? My guess is that your muscles are storing water, and if you keep on waiting it out you'll see the weight start coming down. I don't know how much of an increase you've seen on the scale, though, so do the math to see if that makes sense :)

    Take your measurements with a tape measure in case it continues a bit longer. You might be losing inches already. Good luck!
  • meerkat70
    meerkat70 Posts: 4,605 Member
    At 5 ft 9.5, 165 is already a reasonably low body weight - if you're big framed as well, chances are you're not far from your optimal weight, and the 25lb loss may well be a little aggressive.

    Certainly, maintaining a hefty deficit while you're already within your healthy weight range is going to create some difficulties.

    Calculated your TDEE, and drop maybe 10% max from it.

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